Unfortunately the "history" of this article has confirmed my anal-
ysis of patriarchal scholarship and its institutions. I was invited
to prepare this paper for a scientific symposium, which was to
take place in January of 1979, celebrating the sixty-fifth birthday
of Professor Rudolf Schnackenburg. The theme of this symposium,
which was sponsored by a circle of his former and present doctoral
students, was "Problems in the History of Early Christianity." After I
suggested and presented the following paper, I was assured orally
and in writing that it would be published in the Schnackenburg
Festschrift since it fit well into the overall topic. Subsequently,
however, the editorial committee decided not to publish it -- a de-
cision it made without giving any professional evaluation of the
scholarly merits of the paper. Instead, the editors explained their
unexpected decision by saying that mine was the only contribution
whose content was so timely and burning that it went clearly be-
yond the boundaries set by the topic "From the History of Christian
Origins: Aspects and Canons of Its Development."

In a letter to the members of the Schnackenburg student asso-
ciation ( December 28, 1979), which announced the appearance

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